Dragons on the Sea of Night (17 page)

But then Moichi's heart hardened. ‘She is dead, isn't she?' he said, already knowing the answer in his heart. ‘Aufeya–'

‘Yes. Dead like Tsuki, her bitch mother.'

Reality fell upon him like snow upon the icy upper reaches of the Mountain Sin'hai. But, surprisingly, he was beyond anguish, beyond even tears. He felt nothing at all.

‘You wished for the truth,' Sardonyx said, her warm hand still upon him, ‘so now you will have it. But the Catechists have a saying, “Beware for what you wish because one day you will be delivered unto it.”'

She watched the rise and fall of his chest and, with it, the sheath of years peeled away until she was very young again, the unmarked girl who had been sold into slavery by her destitute and crippled mother, the girl who had murdered her master and had then been thrown into an Adenese jail for the crime of wanting to be free of abuse, the girl who had used her primary assets – her face and her body – to bribe her way to freedom.

‘I left Aden as quickly as I was able,' she said. ‘I had no clear idea of where to go or what I would do. I only knew that I had to get away from Aden and that I wanted never to return.

‘Inevitably, I found myself in the Mu'ad. But I was in luck. I stumbled into a caravan of spice traders bound for Mas'jahan. Once there, I predictably came under the influence of the Catechist religion. I was drawn by the mysticism; I had no center, no sense of life or, more importantly, of myself. But quite soon I became skeptical of their main tenet: that God was living among them, speaking in tongues only the Fianarantsoa could hear and interpret. The ecstatic state of dervishing is indisputable – the feeling, believe me, is supremely exquisite – but I, at least, felt no closer to God when I danced, and within a year I had drifted from the faith.'

As she spoke, Moichi could see her words as if they were pictures moving in the air, montages of her early life into which he was now drawn as inextricably as any of the personages she was describing.

‘One member of the Fianarantsoa liked me especially. Vatomandry. It was he who supervised my training, who danced with me in order not to lose me. But, though he was as much a fanatic proselytizer as the others, he was the only one who treated me as someone, not just another piece of meat for the Catechists to mold. Vato-mandry was an ancient man with a long, bearded face and eyes that had surely glimpsed God. He offered to take me into his household, to be made one of his daughters, and had I accepted I have little doubt that my faith would have been restored. No matter. I declined. Curiously, he seemed to understand.

‘“God comes to us in His own time,” he told me. “Your time has yet to come. You
will
return to us, of that I have no doubt.” And, in a sense, he was right because here I am.'

She was so still for some time that Moichi glanced over at her. Then she spoke again and the images swam before his eyes.

‘Vato-mandry took me to meet a man. “Since your path leads you to the secular world I must ensure that it starts auspiciously.” The man was a trader, only temporarily in Mas'jahan. In fact, I soon learned that he was scheduled to depart the next morning. Vato-mandry had arranged for him to transport me through the Mu'ad and, furthermore, for me to become his apprentice.

‘This man was well-known in Mas'jahan, and to Vato-mandry in particular. And, with the perfect vision that comes with hindsight, I believe that everything that subsequently transpired was, in some way, anticipated by him. You see, it is my belief that Vato-mandry wanted me to learn all the lessons of the secular world, for he believed with all his heart and soul that I belonged to the Catechists. He often spoke of the possibility of my becoming the first female member of the Fianarantsoa. And when even that potent inducement would not keep me at his side, he threw me at once and totally to the wolves.'

Through the bridge of her hand on his chest Moichi became aware of a tension filling her and he concentrated more fully on the images.

‘He was a tall, handsome man with clear, ruddy skin, green eyes and blond hair. It did not take me long to discover that he was a brilliant trader. His skill at negotiation, at obfuscation and deceit were mind-opening to me. To say that I was a quick study would be to understate the case. He was astonished at how completely I grasped the psychology of the con. People are gullible. They are your most potent ally simply because they want to believe and, curiously, the more outlandish the lie you spin, the greater the gain for them, the more eager they are to put themselves in your hands.

‘I found in the con what I believed then was the same form of ecstatic liberation I had discovered with the dervishes. But I was young and foolish and wrong. The truth was, I was addicted to the adrenaline rush.

‘As we traveled from province to province, from land to land, so I grew in skill and cunning. And as I made more and more money for this trader, he began to look at me differently. Utterly predictable. I went from being his paid-for pupil to his apprentice to his co-conspirator to, finally, his equal. By that time we were nearing his home and I noticed a curious change in him. The closer we drew to our destination the more ill at ease he became. It was as if he had lost all sense of home; that he cared only for being in distant lands, plying his trade with the greatest of skill – as if the game, of which he was a grandmaster, was all that mattered to him.

‘And now he had created someone who was his equal. Again, with the benefit of hindsight, I can see that he was at once intimidated and impassioned. He wanted me – badly. At first, I would awake in the middle of the night to find him standing over me, staring at me. When I asked him what was the matter he turned away mutely and, naively, I assumed that so close to home he was missing his wife. This went on for three nights. Then I found him in my bed. I have a history of using my body and, furthermore, I am a highly sexed creature. He was not only handsome but charismatic. He had also been my teacher, had become my mentor and best friend. We had shared intimacies in the heat of battle – and dangers, surely, from authorities who had sought to stop and imprison us had they ever caught us.

‘It was a mistake to bed him. I think even then I understood that somewhere deep inside me. But the lure was too great. There were too many reasons for us to couple, and only one to abstain, and that got lost in the whirlpool of our lust.

‘We enjoyed each other in that manner for four days and, during that time, made no attempt to travel further toward his home. By then, of course, it was too late. He told me what should have been obvious to me all along, that he no longer thought of home, that since meeting me all he wanted was for us to be together. Our couplings had been wonderful, even spectacular at times, but that was all they were, couplings. I was not in love with this man and I had no intention of spending the rest of my life with him. With the directness of youth I told him so.

‘He tried to reason with me, talking of the fortune we would amass together, the life we could live as one. When that didn't work, he tried to have sex with me, as if that sweet oblivion could wipe out reality. Angrily, I pushed him off me. He fell to his knees and, pressing his head into my lap, professed his undying love for me. A little afraid of his intensity, I wanted to hurt him. I told him I was sure he had said the same thing to his wife and now look what was happening. What was to stop a man like him from doing the same thing to me a year from now?

‘He seemed to go mad. Straddling me, he hit me again and again and when I tried to claw his eyes out he hit me so hard I passed out. When I came to I found myself bound to stakes he had pounded into the ground. When I began to cry out he gagged me. Then he raped me, brutally and without mercy. Why was I so surprised? I had seen this side of him many times when we worked the con, I had even admired it, tried to emulate it to the best of my abilities. My one failure.

‘How many times he raped me I cannot remember. I am sure I will never want to. And each time he was more brutal and uncaring. He did things to me … Perhaps these were things he had dreamed of doing for years, and now that he had his chance he held nothing back.

‘In between, he got drunk, because he could not face the future, which he blamed entirely on me. I choose to think it was because he could not face what he had become. In time, he passed out so completely that I had time to work my way free of the bonds.

‘I was weak with the obscenities he had forced on me, shaking with rage and terror. I stanched the blood as best I could. I ate a little food, vomited it up and tried again. When I could get some to stay down I dressed myself with shaking hands. Then I stood over him. I can recall the moment as if it happened yesterday. I wanted to kill him, I admit it. God knows I had killed before. But this was somehow different. This man had been like a father, raising me, so to speak, in my new life, teaching me everything I needed to survive. How could I murder him in cold blood even after what he had done to me? I thought of Vato-mandry and the Catechists, and the utter purity of their dervishes sang like a haunting melody in my head. I felt the pull of Mas'jahan and knew that, for the time being, at least, I had had my fill of the secular life. So I took some money – only what I had earned – and I left him there.'

Her tension had risen to such a pitch that Moichi could feel the vibrations emanating from her fingers. There was a heat like the Mu'ad at noon penetrating him from the center of her palm.

‘I was only a day and a half away from him when I was picked up by a patrol. They asked me if I had been the trader's companion and by the manner of their questions I knew they knew. If I lied I knew it would go bad for me so I told the truth.

‘They took me into the trader's hometown, through the crowded streets where I was gawked at as if I were a circus freak. I was expecting them to take me to prison, but instead I wound up at a sumptuous private house. They forced me to kneel in front of a beautiful woman, a green-eyed witch with hair of silver.'

Moichi took her hand in his as he sat up. ‘What are you saying?'

‘You know what I am saying,' she said softly.

‘You were in the Daluzan capital of Corruña. This woman was Tsuki Seguillas y Oriwara. Her husband was the trader who took you in.'

‘Yes.'

‘Aufeya's parents. God of my fathers!' He ran a hand through his hair. ‘But I was told the Senhor died in a duel.'

‘That would be an altogether honorable death, would it not?'

‘But–'

‘You wanted the truth,' Sardonyx said. ‘Now you must accept it. Sometimes we are better off–'

‘No, no. I want to hear it all.'

Sardonyx nodded. ‘As you wish.' She pushed him down. ‘Now lie back so that the pictures can come to you clearly.'

When he had done as she bade, she continued:

‘Senhora Seguillas y Oriwara wore a long brocaded dress the color of dried ox-blood, and across her face was the traditional Daluzan red veil of mourning. “Is this the bitch?” she said. “The animal who murdered my husband?”

‘“It is, my lady,” the captain of the guard replied with such conviction that I knew I had been tried and convicted without having stepped into a courtroom.

‘I gasped when I heard that Narris Seguillas y Oriwara had been killed, and supposed he had been set upon by brigands seeing, in his drunken stupor, an easy mark. I wept for him, but Tsuki bent over and slapped my face so hard I was thrown upon the marble floor.

‘“How dare you!” she cried, her voice shaking. “How dare you!”

‘I told her that I did not kill her husband.

‘“And I suppose you did not fornicate with him either!” She bent over me, her face twisted evilly. “Liar! You were observed! There are witnesses!”

‘“No one could have seen me kill him because I did not,” I protested.

‘“The blood, Senhora,” the captain said dutifully. “Look at her. She is covered with blood.”

‘“My husband's blood!”

‘“No! It is mine! You don't know what he did to me. He–”

‘But the captain bent over me, shoved a rag down my throat. “You will not defame Senhor Seguillas y Oriwara.” He turned his face up to Tsuki's. “Should I kill her now, Senhora, and be done with such filth?”

‘“No,” Aufeya's mother said. “I have a better idea.” And commanding the captain to hand over his dirk, she took it in her hand as if she had been born to it. “Hold her down,” she commanded.'

Sardonyx put her fingertips up to her scar, running them down its entire length from top to bottom, and Moichi could see the tip of the blade do its deft work.

‘She was an expert on carving. She knew just how deep to go and where to mark me. Then, she commanded the captain to keep custody of me until I was healed of my own accord. On no account, she said, was I to be allowed medical attention. If the cut became infected, so be it. God would decide my fate.

‘“If she lives, let her be scarred from this time forward,” she said. “So that everyone she meets will know what she is and what she has done.”'

Outside the Catechist tent, Moichi could hear the co'chyn, restless now for a time. Perhaps they were in need of a feeding. After a while they calmed down, and only the sound of the fitful wind, the last feeble gasps of the Duk Fadat, could be heard.

‘Now you have squeezed me dry,' Sardonyx said, getting up. ‘I hope you are satisfied.'

But she stopped as he reached up and took her hand. She responded as he pulled her down to him. ‘Somewhere,' he whispered, ‘there is an end to this story.'

‘I did not kill Aufeya, if that is what you mean.'

‘Right now I don't know what it is I mean.' He touched her shoulder. ‘What happened to her? How did she die?'

‘It happened on the mountainside when we fought for the Fire-mask – when you had it on, when you were closing the door between our world and the dimension of Chaos. She slipped and fell. Even with all my magic I could not save her. Nothing could.'